


Pennies for the Guy

by greerwatson



Series: ITOWverse:  Autumn Holidays 2010 [4]
Category: RENAULT Mary - Works
Genre: Gen, Guy Fawkes Night, ITOWverse, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-05
Updated: 2010-11-05
Packaged: 2018-05-27 14:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6288895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Barkers' garden shed, the guy begins to take shape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pennies for the Guy

Reg was down the garden shed, working on the guy.  The head had been no problem.  He had found a piece of sacking on the building site, filled it with sawdust, and tied it into a pudding-shape with a bit of twine to make a shape sufficiently close to spherical to pass, though he would have liked to give it more of a face.  Collecting clothes to make the body was more of a problem. In his youth, they had built their guy over a matter of weeks—here a motheaten sweater, there a pair of trousers with holes beyond patching, perhaps a battered hat or gloves or worn-out shirt.  But there was a war on.  No one threw out bad cloth nowadays, let alone good:  it could always make dusters.  His dad had spared him a pair of old work pants gone in the seat:  the question was what to do about the top of the guy.

“He’s down the garden.”

Reg heard his wife’s voice, and guessed it had to be one of the others, come by after work.  He was surprised, though, to look round and see young Raynes—Spud’s friend—come in with a bundle of ragged clothes under his arm.

“Dave said you’d need these,” he said.  “Someone dropped them off from one of the pre-war books.”

They sorted out the offering, seeing what could tuck in where.

“It’s a bit rough,” Reg said apologetically, wondering if he could persuade Madge to maybe lend a stitch or two to hold it all.

“Never mind.  Any old thing will do for a guy.  What are you going to fill it with?”  Reg pointed to a couple of sacks of leaves that his brother Len had brought over. 

There was a rough bang at the shed door, and Willis came in.  He brought nothing more than a couple of old newspapers and an odd shape of cardboard.  “Well, it’ll burn, won’t it?  Stuff it in,” he said; but Andrew saw other possibilities.  Using a pair of shears, he roughly shaped it to a mask, and then pulled out a pen knife to pierce and cut out a pair of eyes and a mouth. 

“No nose,” he said.  “It’s a pity; but I’ve no idea how to contrive that.”  He pierced the sides with holes, threaded through twine, and tied the mask round the sacking head.

“We can maybe paint something on.  What do you think?”

“I reckon so,” said Reg.  “Why don’t you go up the house and ask Madge?”

He and Willis picked the worst of the trousers and started to stuff the legs, buttoning and tucking in one of the shirts to extend the sausage of clothes, and working the neck of the sacking head down into the collar.

“Wish we could take it round the streets,” said Willis.  “Pennies for the guy—that were great.”  He grinned.  “I remember one time, we took ours round in an old pram.  Got nearly four shillings.   _That_ was a good’un.  Best we ever did.  Reckon if we tried it with this, we’d get more, don’t you?” 

“Use your loaf.  No one’d give a bunch of grown men pennies for the guy.  Least of all when there’s a war on.”

Andrew returned with Madge, a young boy lurking at their heels, eyes wide at the sight in the shed.

“Let’s see it, then,” Madge said; and the men stepped aside.  She took a while inspecting their efforts.  “Yes, it could do with some war paint to brighten it up.  But you’d best leave it to a woman’s touch, if it’s to look right.”

The lad crept round her to poke at the clothes, working out what was going on.  “Is it a guy, Dad?  We’re having a guy?”  His face lit up, but then fell.  “How’re we gonna burn it?  What about the blackout?”

Reg tousled the boy’s hair.  “You let me worry about that,” he said.  “We know a place where we can have it with no danger … and no nosy neighbours, nor rozzers coming round, neither.  But you’ve got to keep mum about it.  You can’t bring your mates—nor talk about it with ’em afterwards.”

“Too right,” said Willis.  He turned to Madge.  “Still, you bring the kiddie, see.  Be great for him.”


End file.
